Objective
Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to impute unobservable mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to others. Our inferences about what others are thinking allow us to deceive and to empathize, to cooperate and to teach. For four decades, researchers have been attempting to elucidate the evolutionary and ontogenetic origins of this critical cognitive ability. In conflict with a long-held consensus, some have begun to argue that human infants (and to some extent great apes) share with human adults even the most cognitively sophisticated representational ToM abilities. To help resolve the intense resulting debate, this proposal presents a series of targeted experiments to test for several understudied but key ToM skills in great apes and human infants. The skills in question—attribution of (a) unfamiliar desires, (b) ignorance, and (c) false perceptions—form the basis of an organism’s ability to distinguish others’ minds from its own and build sequentially in terms of their cognitive and representational underpinnings. The present proposal marshals innovative new anticipatory looking eye-tracking methods and the most auspicious conditions available worldwide, through support of esteemed comparative and developmental psychologists Profs Josep Call and Malinda Carpenter and the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, to address these major gaps in the social cognitive literature. The proposal’s novel anticipatory looking methods, which assess participants’ predictions based on their looks in anticipation of agents’ acting on specific locations or objects, combine low task demands (like VoE paradigms) with clearer interpretability (much like action-based tasks). The proposal thus offers powerful tests of the hypotheses that great apes and human infants share with human adults a representational theory of mind. These studies will contribute key data to our understanding of the ontogenetic and evolutionary precursors of the human mind.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy primatology
- natural sciences biological sciences evolutionary biology
- humanities arts modern and contemporary art cinematography
- social sciences psychology cognitive psychology
- social sciences psychology developmental psychology
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2016
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
KY16 9AJ ST ANDREWS
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.